Artist: Chris Verene

Verene's work reveals an artist committed to documenting the hope and spirit in his family’s community. Through the works on Galesburg, the viewer is shown the simple, average human stories taking place in the declining American Midwest. Verene’s unstaged documentary color photography, with it’s Arbusian style, is largely appreciated for its honesty, intense color, and composition.

Chris Verene has a deadpan-documentary style that I really admire. His images draw on personal experience, which of course I relate to my own work. His images combined with brief text tell stories; some amusing, others touching or worrisome. I'm thinking about taking more of a deadpan approach this time around, and documenting something . . . important (not sure what yet!) And I might be incorporating text again. Chris Verene was the first artist that came to my mind for inspiration. Some of his work:





See his website here.